Key
by ifwednesdaywasaflowerchild
Summary: Helen never quite understood her daughter, much less Alice's taste in suitors, even a year into Alice's marriage to Tarrant. Until she witnesses a tender moment between them on a brutal stormy night while they visit her in London. Maybe, Tarrant is more than just her husband, maybe he's her key.


If she is being honest, Helen Kingsleigh never quite knew what to make of the orange-haired, large-eyed, right proper madman her daughter had deemed to be a respectable suitor and, even after a year, she still wasn't. But, when asked about her potential husband, Alice had beamed so bright and said that her fiance was so beautifully bizarre, she couldn't dream him up, even in her maddest state, to which Tarrant had let out a high-pitched giggle, only silenced by Alice's gentle touch and a soft, "Hatter."

Until, they return to her for a visit, Tarrant and Alice Hightopp still coccooned in the silk of newlywed bliss. Helen's never seen her daughter so happily, so freely herself, but still willing to adjust her life, her dreams, for the presence of another person. The submittance of a proper society lady to her husband is not there, but Tarrant seemed vaguely angered by the thought of his Alice ever submitting to anyone and had told Helen as such over a cup of honeyed breakfast tea.

"But, free Alice is right-proper Alice, and that is who I love." Tarrant had spun the thimble on his thumb in such a way that Helen was reminded of Charles, and the way he spun his wedding band. "I should think if she submitted to someone else, she would lose right-proper Alice and be wrong Alice and I wouldn't like wrong Alice."

Helen's accepted that their marriage will never be Alice submitting to Tarrant, nor would he ever submit to her. They had entered into their marriage as whole human beings and remained that way, despite legal bindings and the matters of the heart that had rendered them unavailable to anyone but each other. She had left it be until the call for a warm cup of tea comes at midnight, while London is being battered to hell by a brutal winter storm, and she sees the outline of a huddled form in her daughter's bay window.

By the soft glow of a lit lantern, she just catches the orange of Tarrant's curls, and when she turns to cast her own light into the room, she sees him. Tarrant stretched on the bench, and Alice, swollen and tired from where she'd obviously been crying, curled vulnerably in his lap, face nestled in his neck. One of his bandaged hands is playing with her sleep tousled curls and the other is holding her close, as close as she desires.

"It was only a dream, love." that soft Scottish burr is just barely audible. "Only a dream."

"It felt so real." Helen can just hear the misery in her daughter's stuffy voice. "I didn't know what to do and you weren't there and everyone kept asking me who you were and you didn't exist."

"But, I do exist, my dear." Tarrant whispers, stroking her long golden curls. "I am here, it's quite alright, now."

Alice huffs but settles deeper into his embrace, obviously still upset by the dream. "You were once a dream, Hatter."

"Yes, but that's all been sorted." his giggle is strangely comforting, "I'm not a dream, any longer. Merely a madman in love."

"If you're a madman, am I a madwoman?" Alice returns softly, obviously content to be held in this manner, happily wrapped up in the arms of someone who called himself mad.

Tarrant pretends to think for only a moment before he's tightening his hold on her and giggling into her hair; "You're a right-proper Alice."

"And, you love me?" Helen's surprised to hear the insecurity in her daughter's voice, but then, there'd always been that chink in her daughter's armor. That little nick of uncertainty in her confident bravado, and she finds she's not surprised by it, but surprised that Alice would let someone see it so willingly.

"With all of my heart, love." Tarrant can honestly say he's never been more sincere.

"You have a big heart, Tarrant." Alice hums, pressing her face into his neck, breathing him in.

"Then, I must love you quite a bit, hmm?" he returns easily, looking down at his beloved wife.

"You must."

Helen recognizes Alice's sleepy rasp when she hears it. Her daughter has always had something of a unique voice, and when she grew drowsy, it deepened, becoming husky in her battle to remain awake.

"I do love you, right proper Alice." it's a funny term, really, but it's Tarrant's description of who Alice is and is, in his eyes, just the same as deeming her perfect. "Nightmares are awful monsters, love, but they're not real. And, if they were, I have every confidence that the Alice I know, my beloved could slay any monster that came for her."

Alice can only hum in response, letting her head fall to his chest, where she can hear the distinct beat of that heart she loves so much. Her eyes burn, drooping with want of the sleep that had alluded her after a particularly heartbreaking nightmare. She just hates to think of a world without Tarrant, without her husband, and when she woke up and saw him in bed next to her, all orange hair and striped fabric, she'd sobbed with relief.

"You must sleep, now, dear."

The candlelight glints off of his thimbled finger and flickers orange through her yellow hair when he plays with it, brushing tender fingers through it, keeping it out of her face, and tugging on it ever so slightly. Helen sees the shadowed form of her daughter fall limp against Tarrant; the tight grip of her pale, slender arms around his torso loosening considerably.

"There we are, my love." he's kissing her head repeatedly, scooping her up to carry her back to bed. "Only a dream, then. Nothing terrible to fear, here. I promise."

The fascination that has kept her glued in place, witnessing what she can by candlelight, the rest just by hearing them, calls at her to watch him just a little longer. To see for herself the tenderness with which he deposits her into bed and covers her, before crawling in beside her, and wrapping his arms around her when she seeks him out, even in sleep.

Perhaps there is a bit of submission, after all. Tarrant is the first person since Charles Kingsleigh to ever witness the soft, vulnerable Alice that she worked so hard to hide. The one who - quite rightfully so, given her strong personality - is afraid of what awaits her in her dreams, even though she knows they aren't real. Helen's only ever seen her daughter afraid of one thing and that was being without the man who made her believe in six impossible things before breakfast and who tenderly brushed her forehead after a dream and told her how utterly and exquisitely mad she was.

She'd watched the madness fade with grief and time. Watching the parchments listing six impossible things crumple into the bin and become shorter, and shorter, until she gave up altogether. She'd watched Alice sit in that same window and cry after a dream, needing comfort but not from Helen. She'd been helpless against the waves of grief from her independent daughter.

In a way, she'd taken advantage of Alice's grief for her own selfish intentions. She'd clipped her wings and shoved her into the same sort of box Margaret was currently suffocating in. Without Charles, she hadn't known what to do; she'd always been so well taken care of in the hands of her beloved and she wanted the same for Margaret and for Alice. It wasn't until Alice freed herself from the cage of grief that Helen saw what she'd always known but chose to ignore; her youngest daughter needed space to roam, to explore with no one's permission to do so but her own.

And, now that she's witnessed a tender moment between husband and wife, she understands a little bit better, what makes her daughter tick, what gives her the drive to be exactly who she is and stubbornly refuse to change. What keeps her from out of the self-imposed confinement, she'd locked herself in and let the sadness and the mourning consume her.

Tarrant is the key to Alice's cage.


End file.
